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Jaguar wrote: Small banks get gobbled up by big banks. I started off with small savings and loan, then it went to medium sized bank, then something else, now it is Citi. I am happy with the service I get, one of the tellers have been there as long as I've been a customer. However, if they put up a 30.06 sign I will go elsewhere.

That is a very lucrative thing to do. You and some friends start up a small community bank, build it up over a period of years with great personal service, reasonable charges, accommodating services, prudent lending practices, and when it gets to a certain size, a big bank, wanting your deposit base, will pay a premium over your book value, sometimes multiples, to get it. They buy the stock for a seemingly absurd price, the investors are tickled silly. Someone starts a new community bank and the customers of the old community bank, turned off by the impersonal treatment and outrageous practices of the big bank they now are dealing with, flee to the new small community bank.

I have seen that happen several times here. I'm on the third generation of bank, which is now approaching the size where some great big bank will come calling.

The rule seems to be that if the bank is big enough to have a Regional VP, it's too big!

It's not all beer and skittles in banking, though. The shareholders and management are mere front men as the government controls EVERYTHING about your bank.

Fortunately my bank has not done so.........If they did I would be a former customer

A-R wrote:simple solution: pull every last cent you have in that bank OUT of that bank. cancel all credit cards, lines of credit, etc. if you have any loans with them, do everything you can to pay them off ASAP or refinance them with another bank.

then write a simple, professional letter to the president of the bank, the board, the branch manager explaining why you took this action and what would be necessary for you to return to being their customer.

Not only that, but when you close your account, don't simply ask them for a check or to transfer your money. Tell them you want it all in cash right now. And don't call ahead. Depending on the size of your accounts and your local branch, this can create a major headache for the bank. Transferring accounts just means pushing bytes over a wire, but when they have to let go of actual cash, that will get their attention. The downside is that you have to protect your now-uninsured cash long enough to deposit it somewhere else.

Send them this to hang next to their sign, or better yet drop it off yourself.